Putting Design Thinking to Work
Anna Margolis
Designing for circular economy & corporate transformation - in research and action
A big thank you to Mary Wharmby and all the participants who have joined the 2nd “sdw - Design Thinking in Action” series last night.
Mary has introduced us to three very different design applications from her experience:
- Understand: Building a diverse work environment at UNOPS: Learn more
- Experiment: Creating a community guide on how to set-up emergency shelters in the case of catastrophes: Learn more
- Build & Scale: Infusing a culture of innovation at the global bank BBVA: Learn more
It is in that context that she has shaped the term “design hybrids” – these are lawyers, economists, risk analysts, customer service employees or CEOs who have learned to apply design thinking in their daily work.
In the interactive sessions the participants had the chance to build empathy maps focusing on various topics. The “hottest” topic turned out to be “Design Thinking for Democracy”. By coincidence this is also one of Mary’s current favourites. We will stay tuned to experience how she will connect design and systems thinking on her next project.
Key advice from Mary:
Design thinking & systems:
“Think about systems at the beginning of the design process. Otherwise, you are just setting up yourself for failure.“
Prototyping:
“We have a tendency in business to wait and wait and wait and build and build and build… Go out early and fail fast.”
How to start with Design Thinking “Don’t start with the whole system. Maybe start with your team or community. You will learn something from it. But it might be something very different from what you expect.”
Thank you at Thomas Haskamp, Carolin Marx and Peter Schache from sdw DTiA for co-hosting the session.
One of the feedbacks we have received after the session:
“Mary, please keep bringing
Design Thinking to the world!”
We can only second that :)
Digital innovation and transformation leader, helping organizations be more customer-centric, collaborative, and agile.
3 年I HUGE thank you to Anna Margolis, the Design in Action team, and all those who took part in the event! I really enjoyed chatting about the many possibilities for applying design thinking in practice and hope everyone will go on to do amazing things!!
Very cool event, I particularly appreciated Mary's practical tipps on dos and don'ts!
Strategy and Operations Lead at Google
3 年This was a great event! Thank you for organizing and hosting it and thank you Mary Wharmby for leading us through the exercise.
Designing for circular economy & corporate transformation - in research and action
3 年Carena Scheunemann Please let me know if you need the content for the alumni newsletter.
Designing for circular economy & corporate transformation - in research and action
3 年Raphael Kohler 拉斐尔 Dr. Michael Baer Jana Jansen Nele Milsch Elisa Holzinger Fiona Fischer Christiane Ott-Lorenz Svenja Wanner Diana Tipei Sarah Rietze